Reds (1981)

I cannot control my tears when one of the witnesses–an older man–says he will not be a “purveyor of gossip, no sir.” His inner integrity is so moving to me–and reminds me so of my uncle Edgar, whom I adored–that I fall in love with him in the truest sense of the phrase every time. In part my love has to do with the beauty of his aged face, his determination, and the fact that he is in a film, which exposes everyone, despite the privacy issue. I have now seen “Reds” several times and the layers become more interesting as I do, particularly when it comes to the documentary aspect in film in general. Since it was a Warren Beatty production it was a long shoot with many many emotional ups and downs and many takes, which, of course, frustrated the actors, and laid them bare. But built into the script was what he knew about some of the players, including Keaton’s intellectual insecurity (which “becomes” Louise Bryant’s) and Maureen Stapelton’s emotional directness (which “becomes Emma Goldman’s). These various cross currents of the actual, the historical, and the plain made up, is not only philosophically interesting to me, but what I respond to again and again when we talk about when we talk about art.